What Does Psalm 21:1 Mean?
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The king rejoices in your strength, O LORD, and in your deliverance how greatly he leaps!
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!THE KEY
The king’s joy comes from strength he does not own and deliverance he cannot manufacture.
THE MEANING
The king rejoices in the LORD’s strength and in the deliverance that comes from the LORD. Your joy, too, can rise from strength you receive and a way opening beyond constriction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This dissolves the belief that joy depends on self-sufficiency: the king rejoices in strength and deliverance that belong to the LORD.
THE ROOT
בִּישׁוּעָתְךָ
bi-yeshuʿatekha
GROWS FROM
ישע
to deliver, rescue, bring out
The word translated “salvation” is yeshuʿah, from the root yashaʿ: deliverance. Its word family names the act of deliverance and the one who delivers; here, deliverance is the opening from constriction into room to live.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: to deliver, rescue
יָשַׁע
This verb names the act carried by the deliverance in the verse: being brought out.
moshiaʿ: deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
The same root names the one who delivers, joining the rescue to its source.
Yeshuaʿ: Yeshua; a name from the root of deliverance
יֵשׁוּעַ
The name carries the same nature expressed here: deliverance itself.
עָזְּךָ
ʿozkha
GROWS FROM
עזז
to be strong, prevail
The king’s strength is explicitly the LORD’s, not his own. The same root family forms a word for a stronghold, so strength can also be a place of refuge.
ALSO GROWS
ʿazaz: to be strong, prevail
עָזַז
This verb reveals the force behind the strength in which the king rejoices.
maʿoz: stronghold, refuge
מָעוֹז
This branch shows strength as shelter as well as might.
יָּגִיל
yagil
GROWS FROM
גיל
to exult, rejoice
“leaps” in this verse is yagil. The verse uses one verb for the king’s joy and another for his rejoicing in deliverance, intensifying the response. Deliverance is not merely an outcome reached; it becomes a source of exultation.
ALSO GROWS
gil: joy, exultation
גִּיל
This noun makes the king’s response visible as more than quiet relief.
gilah: rejoicing, gladness
גִּילָה
This related form carries the verse’s movement from receiving deliverance into gladness.
THE PATTERN
Joy rises as the LORD is recognized as both strength and deliverer.
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.Yet I will leap in the LORD; I will dance in the God of my deliverance.And my breath has leapt in God, my Deliverer.THE THREAD
The LORD is my strength and song, and becomes my deliverance.Psalm 118 names the same pair, strength and deliverance, and says the LORD himself “is become my salvation.” It opens Psalm 21’s joy as delight in the One whose strength becomes deliverance.
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